Thanks to everyone on this thread for all the advice and reviews. Also a special thanks to Dennis for talking with me about the amp and figuring out something that would meet my needs. As a result I purchased a 5 channel MAGNUM 1250 Custom ASP 250 wpc in 8 ohms. It replaced a Parasound HCA-1205 amplifier (145 wpc in 8 ohms and shared power supply). They are powering AV123 Rocket speakers, 3 RSC 200 Signature speakers as LCR and 2 Rocket 250 MKIIs for the rear. Crossovers set at 80 Hz. They are around 89dB sensitive 1w/1m speakers with nominal 8 ohms. The preprocessor is an Onkyo 885. So there is the setup.
I broke it in for 100+ hours before any critical listening. I must say all the reviews are still true in my case. Overall the amplifier produces extremely accurate, clear, and crisp sound in everything. Great midrange and low range punch. I definitely feel like I hear significantly more in every movie I re-watch. Sometimes the subtle sounds are brought forward like never before. Music is clear and crisp, but not sharp. I feel like notes hang in the air and decay as they should. The amp doesn’t add new sound it just removes the mud that I didn’t know was there. Sort of like someone in a third world country who just thinks water is suppose to be muddy and polluted, once you’ve seen the difference it is hard to go back. As a result, like most new AV equipment, it is making me want to re-watch/listen everything.
Now my main cause for buying this amp was to get something that had a significantly cooler operating temperature. On this front it delivered in every way. It was on and running for 8 days. While it was slightly warm when running, it was cooler than my Parasound when it was on but had no signal. To my further delight even when I ramped up the sound to reference volume to watch several movies it didn’t get noticeably warming. It is in a mostly closed cabinet (the back is open) and this is a huge benefit for me. The old Parasound would heat up the room, and this one doesn’t.
For me a true test of this is watching movies with my wife and getting her reaction, especially because her only expectation is that it would be cooler. She was really impressed. I got a couple of “Wows” and “This sounds really good!” and they were all unprompted. Since I had to go slightly over my original budget, this was a huge relief : )
Thanks again to Dennis for all his help. This will probably be the last amp I buy, though I may buy some more modules in the future.
